“The path that has brought me to America these past few weeks has definitely been unexpected, but I am no stranger to unexpected journeys. My mother, Shyamala Harris, also traveled from India to California with an unwavering dream.”
In her acceptance speech on the final night of the epic convention, Vice President Kamala Harris touted her unprecedented path to becoming the Democratic presidential nominee and elevated her identity as the daughter of immigrants from India.
It was a shocking moment for those of us who never imagined we'd have an Asian-American president in our lifetimes, especially since the discussion leading up to the convention had been badly derailed by Donald Trump's bizarre questioning of Harris' mixed-race identity. Trump's claim that Harris had only been “playing up about her Indian roots” before deciding to “go black” prompted whispered fears from some in the Asian community that Harris would be forced to downplay her mother's ancestry and reaffirm her father's Caribbean roots.
Asian Americans have never been seen as a significant part of the country's political discourse in the country's history.
The concerns were unfounded: Like most people of multiracial background, Harris has always been both, not one or the other, celebrating her Black and Asian birthright with equal pride, and in the run-up to the convention, Black and Asian Americans have been celebrating right along with her.
The Black Women for Harris Zoom call shook the internet, drawing 44,000 participants and raising $1.5 million in three hours. Three days later, the South Asian Women for Harris online rally, spearheaded by U.S. Rep. Pramila Jayapal and actress/producer Mindy Kaling, drew 9,000 people and matched the previous $1.5 million raised in the same time frame. The rally paved the way for other Asian American events filled with energetic and engaged attendees, including actor and comedian Ken Jeong, who called out “This is our time. This is our moment!” at the online AANHPI Men for Kamala event.
The excitement that John and many Asian Americans feel about Harris' rise is immense — figuratively and literally — because, when it comes to the major institutions tracking the state of the election, the polls don't measure it.
For decades, the electoral process has used a term to refer to Asian Americans that starts with the letter O. (Not “Oriental,” but, yeah, that's it.) That term is “Other,” the same miscellaneous box into which pollsters toss non-white, non-black, non-Latino people in their data samples, turning us into unidentifiable cuts cut from the Democratic donkey or the Republican elephant, mysterious stuffing in the political sausage.
Harris is sworn in as San Francisco district attorney in 2004, standing next to her mother, Dr. Shyamala Gopalan Harris. Photo: George Nikitin/AP
When Asian Americans were a tiny fraction of the overall population and an even smaller fraction of the electorate — in 1980, Asians made up 1.5 percent of the U.S. population, about 3.7 million people, and had roughly 1 million registered voters — it may have made some sense to lump us all together as an undifferentiated “other.”
But that was long ago. It's not anymore. Consistently the fastest-growing racial or ethnic group in the United States in census counts over the past half century, Asian Americans now make up 6.2% of the population, or 21 million people, of which at least 15 million are eligible to vote. That's larger than the national voting-eligible population of Hispanic or black Americans in 1980. At the time, both groups were already being fragmented in voter surveys and targeted by campaigns. And in battleground states like Pennsylvania (up 769% since 1980 to 612,567 people) and Georgia (up 2,246% since 1980 to 610,257 people), the Asian population has skyrocketed, making us a significant swing vote in these key battleground states. In fact, an analysis by election consultant Target Smart suggests that the margin that Joe Biden won in these states in the 2020 presidential election may all be due to a surge in Asian American votes.
Yet even today, despite the growing influence of Asian American Democratic presidential candidates, Asian Americans remain “otherized” in many major polls.
Pollsters are quick to blame language issues (three-quarters of Asian Americans speak English fluently, nearly as well as Latinos), difficulties finding respondents, and a lack of culturally sensitive survey and data tools. In reality, with the right investment and effort, these challenges are all easily solved. The fact that few have been solved boils down to one troubling truth: never in U.S. history have Asian Americans been considered significant in the country's political discourse.
You can't become what you can't see. But it's important not just to see, but to be seen.
Of course, it's an uphill battle to be considered “politically significant” when you're part of the only group that has ever been explicitly excluded from this country because of your race. The Chinese Exclusion Act of 1882 banned non-resident Chinese from entering the United States, and 35 years later that ban was expanded to include nearly all of Asia in the “Asian-exclusion zones.” This exclusion was a harbinger of open hostility. Throughout the 20th century, the United States found itself at odds with Asians, waging military campaigns against enemy forces in Japan in the 40s, Korea in the 50s, and Vietnam in the 60s and 70s, before waging ugly trade wars with a resurgent Japan in the 70s and 80s and a booming China in the 90s and 2000s.
Given that for most of this country's modern history, Asians have been dismissed as undesirable and vilified as the enemy, it's not surprising that even after the Hart-Celler Act opened the door to immigration in the United States in 1965, many newcomers shunned politics and other high-profile professions like journalism and entertainment, and encouraged their children to do the same. The nail that sticks out, they said, gets hammered down. Better to be silent than to be scrutinized and found flawed. Better to remain invisible than to be targeted. Those of us who entered such professions often did so despite our parents' skepticism and disapproval.
But that wasn't the case for Kamala Harris. Her Jamaican father and Tamil Indian mother raised her in Oakland's black activist community and instilled in her a passion for service through the example of her maternal grandfather, PV Gopalan. Mr. Gopalan was a lifelong civil servant, overseeing refugee relief in Zambia and serving as joint secretary to the Indian government in the 1960s. From an early age, both parents encouraged her to step outside of public scrutiny and embrace politics as a career.
Harris takes the stage on the final night of this month's Democratic National Convention. Photo: Laura Brett/Zuma Press Wire/Rex/Shutterstock
And Harris' story is resonating widely, including with others who have made similar decisions to take on publicly visible jobs.
Speaking at the recent Asian American Journalists Association convention in Austin, Texas, Aisha Sultan, an opinion columnist for the St. Louis Post-Dispatch, said Harris' promotion “gives us hope at a very dark time.”
“All of us Asian American journalists who have had to step into predominantly white spaces know the struggles she had to go through to get here,” she said, “so we know it's possible, and now I'm absolutely going to make it happen. I wouldn't accept anyone other than President Harris.”
Sultan's excitement was echoed by Waliya Lari, a former ABC News producer who is now communications director for the Pillars Fund, a nonprofit that aims to raise awareness among Muslim Americans. “I was so thrilled the day after Harris was announced as the nominee,” she said. “It was great to be able to tell my daughters, 'Look at that. She's someone just like you.' They say you can't be what you can't see, and now they're seeing it.”
Because for those of us who have always been Americans but not identified as such, an Asian American inauguration means pollsters, political campaigns, and policymakers alike have to acknowledge that we are no longer the “other.” And as Ken Jeong says, our chance is now, because the first wave of growing young voters are eager to finally see an Asian American in the Oval Office. According to data from the Asian American Foundation’s Status Index survey, only 34% of Americans aged 65 and older are “very happy” to see an Asian American in the Oval Office, as are 42% of those aged 45-64, while a majority of 16-44 year olds say they would welcome that, a trend that has not changed since Harris was elected vice president.
You can't be what you can't see. But it's not just about seeing, it's about being seen. And for the first time, on the biggest possible stage, in the brightest possible spotlight, we can finally be seen.
